Talk:Deiotarus

Comments

Deiotarix I?

Is there any authority for the form Deiotarix as opposed to Deiotarus? Comparing this article and that for Brogitarus, I suspect that an editor believes that -ix is an all-purpose Celtic ending for names like this (nominative singular, second declension). That's not the case. The suffix -rix (also found as -rixs, -ρειξ and the like) is exactly cognate to Latin rex and means 'king'. If Deiotarus is second declension, its Celtic form should be Deiotaros. (But remember we're in the Greek East here, so we would not be likely to find Celtic names written in Latin letters in any case...)

Also, why is there a regnal number after his name? The convention that kings require numerical proof of their royalty is a strictly modern one (we have Juan Carlos I, Henri I and Jacques I of Haiti, Bokassa I of the Central African Empire – all royal parvenus, so to say – but just plain King John for the English king, Louis-Philippe, Queen Anne, King Stephen, Queen Victoria, etc, all with no numerals). The numerical fetish was altogether unknown to the ancients. If genuine, the epithet Deiotaros Philoromaios would have been quite enough to distinguish this Deiotarus from others of history. Q·L·1968 ☿ 23:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Surname

"sometimes surnamed Philoromaios[citation needed];" see article Castor of Rhodes: "surnamed Philoromaeus" and "Castor as a son-in-law of the Galatian king Deiotarus". --Finn Bjørklid (talk) 21:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)